


Care

by Porkchop_Sandwiches



Series: Story Time [5]
Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot Collection, Season/Series 04, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4416167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/pseuds/Porkchop_Sandwiches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walt isn’t sure if he’s just exhausted or if he indeed is trying to reassure Jesse as if he were showing an empty closet to a child afraid of monsters. But Walt is trying, and that should count for something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devonaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devonaa/gifts).



> This one-shot is based on a prompt I got from devonaa on tumblr asking for Jesse/Walt hurt/comfort. I was also inspired by something beautiful and lyrical and haunting nico wrote about Jesse while under the influence. This is set in early season four.

Walt’s dreaming of lying face up in a coffin, smooth wood enclosing around his body, nails hammering in from above him when he snaps awake.

The rhythmic pounding hasn’t stopped.

It takes him a few seconds to remember where on his bedside table he placed his glasses because sleeping in this apartment still hasn’t quite become engrained into his routine. While not entirely uncomfortable, it’s still a little foreign, as if he were wearing another man’s bedroom slippers.

Leaving his own bedroom, he’s wearing his grey Eagles t-shirt that's fit him loosely ever since the chemo. He’d underneath it from the duffel he packed with nearly every article of clothing he owns. He didn’t want Skyler tossing anything out in this interim while he’s away. Aside from underwear, he’s also in tube socks because making himself any more decent at a quarter past three AM seems rather fruitless.

Someone is still beating on the door, pounding like a damn migraine, and Walt supposes it’s very likely that either the police or one of Gustavo’s men is on the other side.

Flinging it open, he’s greeted by the kind of tepid summer air that likes to creep its ways out across Albuquerque once the sun is down. There’s a distant smell of charcoal. And Jesse of all people is on his front stoop.

Jesse Pinkman with his head shaved—Walt’s still not used to the new haircut—and his eyes red and his stance in a guarded, withdrawing ball, is now staring at the threshold of Walt’s apartment as if it were a living embodiment of the boy’s wrist tattoo; a scorpion ready to deliver poison. The boy looks as if he’s already administered the stuff, pumped himself _full_ of poison, practically radiating his drug-high as his tightly-wound body sways in tiny spasms.

“Jesse? What are you—?”

“They’re following me. Somebody. Somebody’s fucking following me.”

It’s all said in one breath: frantic, teary.

Jesse scrubs at his eye. “I just like stepped out of my house to get some beer ‘cause we…I…was all out or whatever, and I get in my car and there’s like another car behind me. They were still there when I got to the gas station and I didn’t want to get jumped and like I didn’t know…I didn’t know where I could go and….”

He shudders, his facial features crumbling in a way they always do before the boy cries. And, Jesse’s soon sobbing, smudging the heels of his hands into his eyes as if he could manually make it stop, like he’s trying to use tissue paper to clot a fleshy, gory bullet wound. His efforts are woefully senseless.

Walt peers past his garage and squints in the glow of streetlights and sees a familiar car parked about a block away.

“Jesse, that’s Tyrus,” he says. “It’s just Tyrus. See.”

Walt puts on a happy face and waves to the man and it’s too dark to discern a clear fascial expression, but Walt would like to think Tyrus rolled his eyes. And he isn’t sure if he’s just exhausted or if he indeed is trying to reassure Jesse as if he were showing an empty closet to a child afraid of monsters. Unfortunately, for the boy, neither of their closets are exactly free of the kinds of claws that shred you into a pulp from the inside.

Jesse isn’t crying anymore.

“He may be getting paid to tail you,” Walt says. “But certainly not jump you. It’s nothing to get upset over. Do you want to come in?”

The boy nods with feverish relief, then his blue eyes widen and he’s shaking his head. He curls his hand over the back of his neck, mutters “ _shit_ ,” shivers.

“I don’t know. He might think we’re…we’re planning something, like he might call Fring or some shit. _Fuck_ he’s gonna think something’s totally going down seeing me come over to your place in the middle of the fucking night like some fucking idiot junkie. _Shit_ , Mr. White, I don’t wanna…wanna go home.”

Jesse’s beginning to puddle up again, blubbering in his pauses, and Walt’s almost stunned by how much it touches him somewhere deep and tender, where Walt ignores everything until it’s pricked like the sensitive skin under his nails, the place where Walt has Jesse stowed away and compartmentalized.

The boy sniffs. “There’s these people there, real fucked-up people all over my fucking house. These chicks with like tongue piercings and these dog collar necklace-shit got Badger and me shots of some vodka and other…stuff mixed in, but like I think they put some pill shit in ‘em ‘cause I’ve been feeling weird, not just crystal weird either, like…I don’t know. Just… _please_ don’t make me go home.”

“Jesse,” Walt says, gingerly touching the elbow of the arm he has wrapped around himself. “Come inside.”

Walt can feel Jesse lean into his hand, and seeing his expectations flipped is startling enough for Walt to be the one who pulls away.

Jesse almost visibly wilts. He looks like a soggy kitten abandoned in the rain. And Walt is hugging the boy before he consciously knows what he’s doing. Jesse is frail and small in his arms, wet cheek and eyelashes against Walt’s shoulder, and his fingers are unsure but nevertheless softly clawing at his back.

It takes Walt much too long to come up with a simple, hushed, “It’s okay,” as he pats Jesse on the shoulder. Repeating himself doesn’t seem necessary, so Walt doesn’t anything at all. Maybe a minute passes like this.

“Mr. White,” Jesse says. “I got an idea. Just like stay still and don’t punch me or anything, alright?”

Walt has no idea what this means, but Jesse’s face is level with his own. The boy is straining to stand on his tip-toes in his sneakers. Walt can hear cicadas and an air-conditioning unit and Jesse’s labored breathing. Even though Walt has an idea of what might happen, it’s still a shock when Jesse shuts his eyes and kisses him.

The boy’s mouth is just as tentative as his shaky hands, moving in the same kind of fluttery beats as his eyelashes through Walt’s t-shirt, and Walt kisses back initially on instinct. He’s rarely received unsolicited physical advances so his body’s natural response is to simply give into it. He feels Jesse’s lips part and Walt mimics it, again acting out from somewhere primitive and knee-jerk. The boy’s tongue cautiously probes forward, and Walt feels heady and disgusted with himself for opening up. There’s an exchange here now, kiss heating up, Jesse briefly sucking on Walt’s lower lip.

It’s only when Walt cups the boy’s trembling jaw, stubble against his palm, that Walt realizes he’s enjoying this. The recognition is sickening, distasteful, and then Jesse’s tipping and guiding them both inside and every nerve ending in Walt’s body is screaming _Jesse wants to have sex with me_.

He can feel the chilled air of his apartment and carpet on his bare feet and denim brushing his leg when there’s suddenly nothing.

Blinking with Jesse’s taste on his mouth, Walt sees the boy shove the door shut with his shoulder before quickly locking it, and Jesse’s shaking has intensified.

“Gotta sit down or something,” Jesse says, practically barreling past him.

Jesse anxiously positions himself in the very corner of Walt’s sofa, balling up again as he did when Walt first opened the door.

Walt tries to forget about what just happened. He licks his lips. There’s still a lingering of tobacco and vodka and maybe a lemon-lime carbonated beverage.

“Mr. White,” Jesse says. His has his chin his tucked against his collarbone. “Yo, you’re making me nervous. Come…like…sit next to me.”

Walt shuffles forward, plops down onto the center cushion of the couch, and his lumbar hardly has enough time to settle before Jesse grabs onto his arm.

“ _Uh_ …could you…like maybe,” Jesse says, speech slow and in direct contrast to his jumpy tics, “Maybe sit closer…’cause…my chest….”

Jesse gets a handful of his own black t-shirt, distorting the grid of neon yellow bugs and peace signs and pot leaves.

“My chest…feels too loose or something like the parts inside aren’t close enough together or the room’s too fucking big. Like, I just need….”

Walt doesn’t wish to hear any more of this because the guilt is hammering into his chest and skull like nails. He moves right up against Jesse and pulls him in and Jesse’s breath hitches into something high-pitched. Jesse fists the back of Walt’s shirt and shoves his chest against Walt’s almost like a child trying to see inside the glass of an aquarium. Embracing is an understatement. They’ve nearly become one.

And Walt holds Jesse just as tightly, occasionally rubbing Jesse’s scalp and shushing the crying fits that come and go and knock the stark ridges of Jesse’s ribs into Walt’s softer abdomen.

“Can I get you some water? It might clear your head a little. Sober you up some,” Walt says. He tries to sound compassionate over critical.

Jesse shakes his head, sniffles, and grips onto Walt with more resolve.

“How does your chest feel, son?” Walt winces at the slip-up considering what they’d just done outside and how Walt’s just a _hair_ hardening along his inner thigh, but Jesse makes no indication of hearing him or feeling anything. “Does it feel better?”

“ _No_ ,” Jesse says, voice raw and shrill.

The boy presses in tighter, so much so that Walt feels out of breath. Walt’s getting almost too warm, shared body heat feeling more like a contagious sunburn.

Jesse hikes a leg up to hook over Walt’s kneecap. The boy’s almost balmy belly is even more so flush against him, groins lingering close but with a palpable distance still there like two adolescents slow-dancing in the school gymnasium. How many punch bowls has Walt guarded in his years at J.P. Wynne? When did his mouth become so dry?

Walt can feel a pulse between his legs that spreads shame up his spine, sweat beading up along the tops of his shoulders, and he seals his eyes shut in attempt to make it all go away.

But, the boy is this visceral, downy, weighty presence all around him.

“I fucking deserve this,” Jesse says. “ _Shit_ Mr. White, you should of just let those assholes kill me. No one…nobody wants me…around any ways.”      

“Jesse, don’t say that.” Walt shakes him a little forcibly even though Jesse’s weeping again, because he wants Jesse believing this. He’s never been one for words, at least not in regards to expressing heartfelt sentiments. Skyler has on more than one occasion accused Walt of being emotionally stunted. But, he circles his hand between Jesse’s shoulder blades and tries to think of something. “I wouldn’t have done what I did if I didn’t…want you around. Don’t let anyone make you feel that way…particularly me.”

Jesse actually snorts with a hiccup and Walt can’t help but smile. And maybe while the words “junkie” and “imbecile” still apply to the boy in front of him, verbalizing such isn’t worth it if it means Jesse’s trying to numb himself into oblivion, parroting them back to him on Walt’s doorstep with a ruddy face, attempting to dig them out from his veins like a needle under flesh.

The boy’s inhaling and exhaling more evenly now and Walt can feel Jesse’s heart thud a beat behind his own.

“Fifty-fifty,” Walt murmurs.

And suddenly Walt is struck with the image of Jesse taking his own life because of what Jesse’s done to support his end of their partnership and the things that have happened _to_ him as a result: losing the girl, the death of the new one’s younger brother, Gale. He unwillingly pictures himself finding Jesse in the aftermath of an overdose, blood pooling out from his nose with his blue eyes dead and marble-like. Walt’s vision blurs and he breathes irregularly enough for Jesse to peer up at him.

Walt feigns adjusting his glasses so he can drag a knuckle under each eye.

“I don’t,” Walt says. He has to stop because he’s getting choked up, and this isn’t like him at all. “Don’t want you hurting yourself. I…want you around, son. I do.”

“ _Mr. White_ ,” he says in near awe.

Jesse appears fidgety and even uncomfortably flattered and lets his forehead drop again so they’re not looking at each other anymore.

The boy rubs Walt’s back with his left hand.

His right cups him directly over the front of his underwear.

Walt’s mouth goes slack for just an instant because the cotton material is much too thin to be touched like this. Jesse’s palm is hot. He twitches and stiffens, and Jesse encouragingly caresses him.

But, this indulgent moment is fleeting.

He shoves Jesse back into the armrest of the sofa and stands and something painful ripples up from his lungs.

“What the _fuck_ …are you doing?”

Jesse looks crushed, pales, stutters nonsense with his eyes watering.

“I…just…thought you’d like it.”  

Walt’s seething with rage and deeply wounded.

He points at himself. “How exactly do you think of me, Jesse? Like I’m depraved? You’d thought I’d want you to…that I’d want that when you’re in this state? Am I just a monster to you? Is that really…how you see me?”

 _Goddamn_ , Walt feels his chest lurch and he has to press his hand to his mouth, reign in the way he wants to cry as freely as Jesse. Because it seems as if everyone is becoming sick of him and kicking him out: Skyler out of their home, his son out his day-to-day life, and now Jesse thinks the only reason Walt could possibly want him alive is for Walt’s own twisted gratification. When did people start looking at him like this, like he was wearing something cancerous on the outside? Just how much of this is his fault? He chews on the inside of his cheek. How much of it is true?

Jesse has his knees tucked up, wide-eyed. “ _No_. It’s…I thought I’d kiss you outside just so Tyrus would think…like…you know, like, that’s why I was here. And you seemed to…kind of like that and then I thought I felt you get sort of hard sitting here. I just thought you’d like it, I swear. Please, don’t kick me out. Don’t make me leave, Mr. White.”

“You don’t want me to kick you out? Why, Jesse? Because your _pathetic_ , junkie ass wouldn’t have anywhere else to go?”

Walt wants to regret what he said, but he’s in the thick red center of his anger and nothing ever feels bad here.

“No!” Jesse sits up straight, grits his teeth, and smacks his hand against the couch. “I…fucking love you, okay?”

Walt’s rage dissipates hotly and rapidly like steam.

The boy snorts humorlessly and gnaws at the cuticle of his thumb. “Don’t look so fucking shocked. We cook crystal fucking meth together. I killed a guy for you. So what if I might be… _shit_ , I don’t know…like sort of…gay for you?”

There still a tremor in Jesse’s slumped posture, but it isn’t anything like how he was earlier tonight. Earlier tonight? He glances at the time off his cable box. Jesse has been crying for the better part of an hour. Walt’s verbally at a loss again. He’s dizzy with mood swings.

He turns away and walks into his kitchen even though it’s as if he can sense Jesse’s eyes desperately following him. Grabbing a glass from the counter, he fills it up at the tap. While he’s waiting, he’s startled to see himself fully hard in his underwear. Erections have never been something he’s been unaware of, but Jesse’s never told Walt he loved him. Walt’s mind is a little harried.

He spots an unopened box of those mini-Ritz cracker sandwiches with the powdered cheese that he’d purchased while grocery shopping on an empty stomach, digs them open, and pours it like cereal into a small bow. Giving his swollen cock an incredulous glare and stretching his shirt down as far at the fabric allows, he returns to the living room so he can hand the fruits of his labor over to Jesse.

The boy looks puzzled, but he takes several hearty gulps of water, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and then pinches out a cluster of crackers.

Walt stands there for a short spell before he starts feeling like a sommelier eagerly awaiting the verdict on the Malbec he recommended. He grabs the remote, switches on the television, and sits on the other end of the sofa. It’s still on the Discovery Channel and the screen showcases a sunny Sahara bright enough for Walt to squint at the lion cubs getting bathed by their mother. He’s a little chilly now everywhere but between his thighs, and part of him wants to reach out to where he’d been sitting before, even just to touch the warmth in the cushions. He folds his hands in his lap in way of masking the engorged anticipation there that isn’t diminishing.

Jesse’s confession feels like a pill clogged in the back of Walt’s throat and his own response is eating away at him like acid reflux.

But, he doesn’t look at Jesse or speak at all until the empty dishes are clinked down onto the coffee table.

“Do you,” Walt says. He coughs, feels irrationally angry by how idiotic he already knows he’s going to sound, “Do you still feel the same way…about me…now?”

Jesse scratches his forearm. “Shit, I don’t Mr. White. I usually turn pretty straight after a snack. It’s kind of like my own werewolf superpower. Cheesy crackers are like real strong too, like they totally take away all my embarrassing shitty feelings I have for the like old dude trying to hide his boner next to me. How’d you know, man?”

“Don’t be a little shit,” Walt says.

It’s harsher than he wanted it, and Jesse flinches.

Walt doesn’t know what to do so he just sags back against the couch. He closes his eyes and thumbs the bridge of his nose. And as if he were admitting some grisly secret, he speaks steadily and almost inaudibly above an advertisement for Clorox wipes, “You might be a little shit, but I might…love you.”

He can feel movement closing in on him and there’s weight on his lap again. Then a hand is just barely quivering on his chest. Jesse’s mouth presses against his.

Walt tries to move the boy, gentler this time, and Jesse tentatively holds Walt’s wrist.

“It’s okay,” Jesse says. “Yo, I’m good. Crackers, remember?”

Jesse’s straddling him.

Walt slides his hand up the boy’s back.

Jesse drags his crotch along the line of Walt’s cock and there’s only so many times someone can say, “Stop. That feels good,” before they go completely insane. And Jesse’s hips are sinuous and circling and rocking. Jesse’s skin is too flushed for Walt to tell if the boy’s blushing or not, but his eyelashes almost flutter, and Jesse’s kissing him again when Walt notes that Jesse is now rigid against his leg.

Walt moans into Jesse’s opened lips and receives a pleasantly wet slide against his tongue. Even with what’s been said tonight, it’s still staggering for Walt to know this is reciprocated. And even though it’s foolish, having something else to share just between the two of them—only him and Jesse—makes Walt feel irrationally giddy.  

He raises up in attempt to roll the boy over softly onto the couch, but he underestimates how light Jesse is, and then in a beige flurry, Walt finds himself thudding down onto the floor with the back of Jesse’s head taking most of the impact.

“Jesse, are you”—

“ _Shut up_ ,” Jesse says with a chuckle.

He tips his pelvis up and Walt’s more than happy to grind down against the warmth and friction between Jesse’s now gaping wide legs. Walt has a perfectly good mattress upstairs and yet nothing could top the way he’s feeling right now rutting against a shamelessly moaning Jesse.

Then Jesse’s arms are slinking down to Walt’s waist, drifting heavy and lower, and Walt has his nails dug fiercely into carpet fibers hoping Jesse will slot his fingers inside the flap of his underwear. Instead, Jesse’s thumbing at Walt’s hipbones, breathing in enough for Walt’s chest to dip down a fraction along with the boy, and Walt’s throbbing all over when he feels Jesse tug his underwear off. Jesse leaves them bunched under Walt’s backside, palming each cheek of Walt’s ass, radiating with an approving smile when Walt leaks onto Jesse’s jeans.

The last time they’d been on the floor together was under extremely different circumstances—trying to kill each other—and Walt wishes they’d just done this way back then, though Jesse smells much better now. He pictures Jesse in his shower and drips at the sudsy image.

And Walt feels himself yanked forward by boney hands. He thrusts down desperately, seeks and finds Jesse’s mouth wet and open for his own, and somewhere in the shuffle, Walt realizes he’s now lined up with Jesse’s slim, little tummy. The hem of Jesse’s t-shirt is up by the bottom of his ribcage, allowing Walt’s cock to glide against smooth skin and the wiry path of his treasure trail.

Jesse quietly giggles and Walt’s gaze shoots up to Jesse’s charmed expression, looking happier than Walt’s seen in much too long.

His slit dribbles with pre-come again and he hangs his head, delighting in the foreign textures of Jesse’s body and hair, never in his life having felt something like this along the head of his cock. He chokes on a groan when he slides along the ridge of Jesse’s navel just right, leaving it slick as he grinds up and down and up.

“ _Fuck, Jesse_ ,” Walt moans.

His orgasm is thick and abrupt and lengthy. It gets on the boy’s belly and t-shirt and goes on long enough for Walt’s arms to ache keeping himself upright like this.

Plopping down, because it’s too much, he feels a bit sticky though _utterly_ satiated. He’s still and panting and beginning to blink a touch slower with how relaxed he is, wanting to give in to the urge to drift off when he feels Jesse wriggle beneath him.

Jesse whines. “ _Come on_ , Mr. White, don’t be a dick.”

Walt smirks because there’s something oddly soothing about Jesse heckling him when they’re entwined like they are. Raising himself up on his knees, he sees Jesse anxiously lift an eyebrow with his nose crinkled like he thinks Walt’s in the process of leaving him here.

He smiles and unfastens Jesse’s jeans. Jesse isn’t wearing anything underneath and it’s boyishly filthy. Jesse’s puffy, pink erection is pretty, almost disarmingly so. He traces his index finger around the head and he has an idea.

Reaching out, he smears his hand against the slipperiness still coating Jesse’s belly, gets a good hold of Jesse’s shaft, and glides the substance along him in a tight, languid, upward stroke.

He’s only reached the ridge around the tip when Jesse whimpers out, “ _Mr. White_ ,” and comes in Walt’s hand with his eyes pinched shut.

Walt caresses him in the ensuing pulses and bursts. He doesn’t stop until Jesse squirms back a little, and Walt’s hand is an absolute mess.

Hesitating for a moment, he lets curiosity spur him forward and he tentatively licks a small swath of his palm. It’s a little bitter but also somewhat salty and even sweet to a degree. He takes another taste and Jesse makes a gravelly, “ _Mmm_ ” noise before a second tongue is lapping at his skin. And Walt’s too stunned to do much more than watch as Jesse cleans him like an affectionate kitten, Walt licking here and there but allowing Jesse the lion’s share until Walt’s skin no longer feels tacky.      

Jesse runs his tongue across his lips with a drowsy smile and makes that unfairly gorgeous “ _Mmm_ ” again.

“Right on, Mr. White,” Jesse says with a snicker. “We’re both freaks.”

Walt snorts, pulls his underwear back on and tucks Jesse gently back into his pants. He doesn’t want to be insensitive, but he’s almost falling asleep with his eyes open. However, Jesse doesn’t seem to be faring much better, yawning, and stretching out lean beneath him.

Standing with a pop in his weaker knee, he extends a hand for Jesse. “Off to bed?”

Jesse’s eyes narrow. “You’re cool with me sleeping with you?”

“Yes.”

Walt feels no reason to elaborate.                   

The smile on Jesse’s face is small, but sweetly genuine, and he allows Walt to help pull him up. He switches off the television and the light. And Walt’s so drained, he doesn’t realize they’re still holding onto each other until they’re half way up the stairs. He squeezes Jesse’s palm a little tighter, wondering briefly how this happened so quickly and just how long it’s been simmering under the surface. He imagines what it will be like having Jesse tucked into him in bed, and he feels Jesse grip his hand back.

They shed clothes, choose sides of the mattress, and curl into one another wordlessly in the dark. Walt kisses the shorn, bristly back of Jesse’s scalp. He shuts his eyes and hopes for pleasant dreams, for the both of them.  


End file.
